Wabi Sabi is a way of seeing the world that is at the heart of Japanese culture.
It finds beauty and harmony in what is simple,
imperfect, natural, modest, and mysterious.
– Mark Reibstein, Wabi Sabi
Agra, India
Iraq
Tibet
Wabi-sabi suggests that beauty is a dynamic event that occurs between you and something else. Beauty can spontaneously occur at any moment given the
proper circumstances, context, or point of view. Beauty is thus an altered state of consciousness, an extraordinary moment of poetry and grace.
– Leonard Koren, Wabi-Sabi: For Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers
Cambodia
Cambodia
It is only with age that you acquire the gift to evaluate decay, the epiphany of Wordsworth, the wisdom of wabi-sabi: nothing is perfect, nothing is complete, nothing lasts.
– Paul Theroux
Havana, Cuba
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
– Gerard Manley Hopkins
quoted in the Daily Good
Ethiopia
Ethiopia
The beauty of wabi-sabi is rooted in modesty that is elegantly perceived.
The aesthetic pleasures of wabi-sabi depend on
attitude and practice as much, or more,
than on the materiality itself.
– Leonard Koren, op.cit.
Kathmandu, Nepal
The underlying principles of Wabi Sabi are diametrically opposed
to those of their Western counterparts,
whose values are rooted in a worldview that
values permanence, grandeur, symmetry, and perfection.
– Andrew Juniper
Laos
Preah Khan, Angkor, Cambodia
For a lovely bowl
Let us arrange these flowers
For there is no rice
– Matsuo Bashō, Japanese Haiku
Russia
Mandalay, Myanmar/Burma
If you look closely at a tree you’ll notice it’s knots and
dead branches, just like our bodies.
What we learn is that beauty and
imperfection go together wonderfully.
– Matthew Fox
Havana, Cuba
Srinagar, Kashmir
Mandalay, Burma/Myanmar
India
Japan
Elberton, Georgia, Deep South, USA
Havana, Cuba
A diamond with a flaw is worth more
then a pebble without imperfections.
– Chinese proverb
Love the concept of Wabi-Sabi, and love the photographs.
Dear Steve:
I love your photo of the Taj Mahal. I has inspired me to do a drawing from it.
Stephen F. Condren
http://www.condrengalleries.com
soul and spirit inspired…pulling back the veil of nations.
NICE READINGS WITH GOOD WORK.!!
your work is a feast for the eyes…the symmetry, the colors, the textures, the humanity…thank you.
I totally agree with that Wabi-Sabi philosophy and in a way it is the essence of photography.
Amazing and so inspiring..makes our western culture really fall short in many ways
Beautiful….thankyou, again,for another fascinating collection of images from around the world.
Motivational..
Outstanding
Motivational
Inspiring!
such beauty! made my day… uh, evening actually! 🙂
I’m absorbed by the beauty in the photographs and the messages beneath. A heartwarming post that resonates with me.
I totally agree. I once took a photo of a white tulip with one red petal, surrounded by completely white tulips. That stubborn punker tulip made my day.
Totally agree. Beautiful blog post. I once took a photo of a white tulip with one red petal, surrounded by completely white tulips. That one stubborn punker tulip made my day.
Thank you once again Stevebhai for these wonderful images and the quotes.
”Wabi-sabi reminds us that we are all transient beings on this planet—that our bodies, as well as the material world around us, are in the process of returning to dust. Nature’s cycles of growth, decay, and erosion are embodied in frayed edges, rust, liver spots. Through wabi-sabi, we learn to embrace both the glory and the melancholy found in these marks of passing time.”
I’m in awe! Thank you.
Outstanding in every way.
🤗
Beautiful images, very thought provoking especially the image from Srinagar.
Thank you so much for enhancing my thinking with your wonderful eye and philosophy 👁👍🏻👋
Thank you for teaching me Wabi-Sabi in such a profoundly visual way.
Marvellous interpretations
Thank you for your wonderful work. Very inspiring.
Sheila Silver, Composer of A Thousand Splendid Suns, The Opera
Thank you so much. Love all your posts. This one particularly resonates with me, love the philosophy and images,
amazing imperfect beauty
You continue to teach me to see. Thank you.
Wonderful post !
Wonderful as usual, thanx Steve!
We just visited your show in Ortigia, Sicily. It is stunning. We didn’t want to leave. The experience of each piece, the experience of the whole, is so enlivening, uplifting, holy. Thank you for your talent, your courage, your eyes and your heart.
Thank you, Steve, for opening our eyes and hearts to the beauty of imperfection and Wabi Sabi.
Lovely images and theme. I learned something pertinent to my view of the world, my own creativity and appreciation of the art that surrounds us. I want to learn more about Wabi Sabi.
Beautiful.